In designing the $800 million mixed-use development, One Daytona’s lead architect, Howard Elkus, said he is striving to achieve a one-of-a-kind look that’s both “stunning” and “timeless.”

By Clayton Parkclayton.park@news-jrnl.com

DAYTONA BEACH — The One Daytona mixed-use complex that’s set to break ground later this year across the street from the Speedway is envisioned by its developers as a major destination for entertainment, dining and shopping that will draw visitors year-round.In designing the $800 million mixed-use development, One Daytona’s lead architect, Howard Elkus, said he is striving to achieve a one-of-a-kind look that’s both “stunning” and “timeless.”Elkus is no stranger to large-scale projects that aim for the “wow” factor.He is the co-founder of Boston, Massachusetts-based Elkus Manfredi Architects, an architectural firm whose resume includes Downtown Disney in Anaheim, California, the Disney Springs redevelopment of the Orlando area Downtown Disney that began construction last year, and the planned Miami Worldcenter project to redevelop a 10-block area immediately north of Miami’s Central Business District.“We don’t do cookie cutter projects,” Elkus said in a phone interview with The News-Journal. Also sitting in on the interview was Brian Leary, managing director of Atlanta-based Jacoby Development, the 50-50 joint development partner with International Speedway Corp. on One Daytona.Daytona Beach-based ISC owns both Daytona International Speedway as well as the 190-acre development site where One Daytona is planned.

ISC’s and NASCAR’s headquarters are in the eight-story International Motorsports Center office building, which was built in 2009 and was originally intended to be part of a smaller scale mixed-use complex called Daytona Live.The onset of the Great Recession forced that project to be shelved, but ISC officials held on to the vision of creating a mixed-use complex that could complement the Speedway.With the economy finally showing signs of life in early 2012, ISC hired Elkus and his firm to begin working on a master plan for One Daytona.Elkus said the International Motorsports Center set the tone in determining the look and feel for the rest of what he describes as the One Daytona “neighborhood.”“We prefer to not refer to it as a project or development,” he said.“ISC, Scott (Bullock, ISC’s managing director of corporate development) and Lesa (France Kennedy, ISC’s CEO) wanted the International Motorsports Center to be that first step forward” for One Daytona, Elkus said.Kennedy has been actively involved — both weighing in on the design standards for One Daytona as well as personally participating in efforts to recruit national retailers, restaurants and hotels, Elkus and Leary said.“To say she’s rolling up her sleeves would be an understatement,” Leary said.

The goal for One Daytona, Elkus said, is to create a “companion piece” to the Speedway that can serve as a western “gateway” to the city.The Speedway, which is undergoing a $400 million renovation that ISC has dubbed “Daytona Rising,” and the site for One Daytona are connected by a pedestrian overpass.Both the Daytona Rising project and the $289 million initial phase for One Daytona — which will include a 12-screen Cobb Theatres movie complex called the Daytona Theatre, a Bass Pro Shops store and a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel — are scheduled for completion in 2016.“What intrigued us was the uniqueness of this project,” Elkus said, noting One Daytona’s proximity to the Speedway, home of the Daytona 500, as well as its prime location along International Speedway Boulevard, which connects Interstate 95 to the World’s Most Famous Beach.“This will not replace downtown Daytona Beach and the beach — this will complement them,” he said of the One Daytona and Daytona Rising projects. “All should be enhanced by this double anchor. ... We’re adding a dimension to the totality of Daytona Beach so the entire city has more gravitas — more reasons to visit.”While ISC and Jacoby Development have yet to announce a construction start date for One Daytona, Leary said, “we’re still feeling good about breaking ground in the coming months and in the completion of the initial phase in 2016” — which he added “is going to be a heck of a year in Daytona Beach.”

Elkus said he and his firm, in designing One Daytona, are aiming for a look that’s more like a downtown, with a mix of architectural styles, as opposed to shopping malls that tend to have a more uniform look.That means “insisting” that major tenants, such as Bass Pro Shops, Cobb Theatres and Marriott, “design their own storefronts — with our approval,” he said. “We want their creative minds involved.”That said, he added, most retailers design stores that “typically aren’t timeless. It’s an interesting challenge to work with Neiman Marcus” and other chains in “finding the balance.”For One Daytona, Elkus said, “We want their latest (store concepts), not their last edition.”Elkus said he and his firm are committed to making One Daytona “a memorable place,” so when visitors cross the pedestrian bridge from the Speedway, they are greeted by a sight that’s “stunning.”One Daytona, according to signs recently put up on the development site, will include not only a mix of uses, but also a variety of zones and what Elkus describes as “great public spaces.”Those zones include “Victory Circle” — described in the signs as “Daytona’s front door — the link between One Daytona and the Speedway,” “The Boulevard” — a “mini-promenade” where guests can “shop, relax, dine and linger in an environment with something for everyone,” a waterfront area that will offer “nightly water shows,” and a “Village Market” that will include a grocery store.One Daytona “is going to be the home of concerts, cookouts, car shows — you name it,” Leary said.Added Elkus: “We see this (One Daytona) on game day as being a happening place.”

Projects like One Daytona are part of a growing trend nationally, said industry observer Maureen McAvey, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington D.C.“It’s the effort to create substantial community centers” that go “beyond lifestyle centers and are certainly not malls,” she said.The challenges for such developments, which some in the industry call “urban villages,” “town centers” or even “new in-city towns,” is that they typically are built in phases, over an extended period of time that can be as long as a decade, McAvey said.That requires having a developer and property owner who can stay true to their vision for the project, even during an economic downturn, she said.“You need to be able to avoid allowing low-use development such as a one-story dry-cleaner just because the owner needs the rent,” McAvey said.Ensuring that the development has a “wow” factor not only makes for good marketing, but is essential to creating a major destination for entertainment, she said.“One of the challenges will be being clear on what this (One Daytona) is and what it isn’t. In Las Vegas, for example, you wouldn’t want to have two blocks of ordinary apartments in the middle — it would break the sense of it being an entertainment district. ... It does need to avoid being pedestrian (in look),” McAvey said.

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